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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

So Shawna A. asked her bakery to make a cake just like this one from Pink Cake Box:

To make it easier, she even brought in a print-out of this picture. And, since she wanted her cake to say "Welcome Little Monkey" instead of "Happy Birthday," she was sure to cross that bit out. That way, there could be no confusion whatsoever, right?

Riiiight.

All in favor of banning the edible photo printer for all eternity, say "Oy VEY."

Reader Comments (97)

After all the posts of the crazy cakes I am still surprised each time. Always surprised at the level of incompetence out there. I went to school to be a pastry chef, I never did wedding cakes or birthday cakes but I'm certain I would never make these kind of mistakes. Right I'm unemployed, looks like there might be hope for me yet!

I'm a bit confused -- it must have been a different picture that she actually submitted, right? (The branch looks like it might be flipped, and the whole picture seems to be rotated about 30 degrees from its center.)

At any rate, we can all agree that the world would be a better place if the edible photo printer went the way of the dodo.

I have to say, since a planner would usually pick up the cake right before the event, I'm guessing that some people who send in these wrecks have to let the irritation die down before the humor becomes evident. Or else someone not closely involved in the planning sends the picture!

I love this blog and so does my aspiring cake decorating daughter so when I saw the Cakewrecks calendar last night I *had* to buy it for her. Question though: Has anyone opened it and looked? Or John maybe you can help...does it contain any of the PG13 posts?

Not really. There's some very vague stuff that I can't imagine any child would "get." Of course, it seems like most nine year olds know bad words that I've never even imagined so who knows? But overall, nothing that bad. In my opinion.*

john

*The opinions of john (the hubby of Jen) may not be shared by any or all individuals who may or may not read this blog. Please see section 43A, addendum 3, paragraph 9 "John's stupid opinions" in the Cake Wrecks manifesto for further details.

I had a similar experience with a cake I ordered for my husband's retirement. I gave the baker photos of some things that represent my husband's past and future endeavors and, you guessed it, she made edible images of these photos rather than piping them on the sides of the cake. Not bad enough to be a Cake Wreck, but I was quite disappointed. "Ace of Cakes" and Sunday Sweets have raised my expectations to insurmountable levels...

Gah!! What kind of morons are working at these bakeries?! Who would want a photo of a cake.on.their.cake?! Insanity! I'm going to stick to making my own cakes; they might not be "professional" looking but I'm starting to be more and more ok with that. lol

I used to work for an advertising magazine company, and EVERY SINGLE MONTH, we would go to the same bakery department at Sam's Club (that's right, I'm calling you out by name). We were such regular customers that the greeter would recognize and view the cake each time.

All we wanted was to get the cover ad printed as a photo onto the cake. No words, just please take this picture I'm handing to you, use the edible printer to scan exactly as is, and pipe blue icing around the edges.

I would say that at least 75% of the time, it was done wrong. Picture cropped, turned the wrong way, not iced around the edges, wrong color icing- it was like they were thinking up ways to ruin it.

No matter if it was the same baker as last month, no matter how carefully I filled out the form, no matter the simplicty, still wrong. Sometimes you can't win for trying.

I agree this is sad, but I can't help but wonder what made the orderer think this bakery could pull of the original cake ? I mean for a lot of bakeries a sheet cake with an edible printout is the upper limit of their talent. I'd doubt any place willing to make a cake like the one Shawna ended up with is doing semi-sculptural fondant or sugar clay on their other cakes.

I'm honestly starting to wonder if some of these came about because the customer used an online form that had an image upload option and incorrectly guessed its purpose. No human could be that dense. They just couldn't! And this is speaking as someone who's been reading Not Always Right all weekend.

Why do I suspect that Shawna's reaction was similar to the Jane Austen quote of two days' ago:

"Are you frickin' kidding me?!?

This reinforces my theory that, when asked what time you want to pick up the cake, you should always say 5 hours before you really need it. That allows time for the frosting to be scraped off and redone.

It also makes me glad these people work in bakeries. They could work at the cable TV call center. Or perhaps nuclear power plants.

That rather surprises me...we get all of cakes for work from Sam's Club's bakery, and they have never been a wreck, or even close. They pretty much give us exactly what we ask for. I guess it depends on the talents at the specific bakery!